Dr. Robert Lambert, Co-Director of the European Muslim Research Centre at the University of Exeter, has written an opinion piece for Al-Jazeera asserting that Israeli Muslim Brotherhood leader Raed Salah has been “unfairly targeted by British authorities” as a result of the “long standing role of influential pro-Israel, neo-conservative lobby groups in Westminster and Washington.” According to the piece:

Like other Muslim leaders, Sheikh Raed Salah (C) has been unfairly targeted by British authorities, author says [EPA] Writing in the Guardian newspaper Hanan Zoabi, a member of the Knesset, where she represents the Balad Party, asks how Sheikh Raed Salah’s “struggle for equality” has become a “form of racism?” She is no doubt perplexed to find a fellow defender of the Palestinian liberation struggle defined as a ‘hate-preacher’ by the British Government. “Since when” she pleads, “have states that boast of their democratic credentials acquired the right to arrest people for their political views?” To answer Zoabi’s questions and to explain the extraordinary decisions to ban, arrest and deport the Palestinian leader Sheikh Raed Salah from Britain it is necessary to understand the long standing role of influential pro-Israel, neo-conservative lobby groups in Westminster and Washington. The best place to start is 9/11. As we approach the tenth anniversary of al-Qaeda’s terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon it has become fashionable to suggest that the worst excesses of the war on terror are behind us. In truth, the pro-Israel, neo-conservative architects of the war on terror in Washington will be celebrating their ongoing success in falsely conflating a war against Palestinian resistance with what might otherwise have been a legitimate counter-terrorism strategy against al-Qaeda terrorists. A key ingredient in this success has been to adopt the powerful and pejorative term ‘hate-preacher’ to describe leaders of Palestinian resistance against Israeli oppression and to put them in the same category as al-Qaeda terrorists. Although taking their cue from sister think-tanks like Middle East Forum in Washington, Westminster based lobby groups and their media acolytes including Policy Exchange, Henry Jackson Society and the Centre for Social Cohesion, have been at the forefront of a decade long campaign to reduce Palestinian resistance leaders to the same status as al-Qaeda terrorists.

Previous posts have discussed the arrest of Mr. Salah in the U.K. and the support offered to him by the Global Muslim Brotherhood. A BBC producer and MEMRI have both covered the anti-Semitic and extremist views of Mr. Salah. In 2010, the Jerusalem Post profiled Mr. Salah who leads the Northern branch of the Islamic Movement, essentially the Israeli Muslim Brotherhood.

It should be noted that a previous post revealed that the European Muslim Research Centre (EMRC) was launched with funds provided by the U.K. Muslim Brotherhood and that the organization’s advisory board includes members representing the Muslim Council of Britain, a part of the U.K. Muslim Brotherhood and a founder of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Also on the EMRC board is John Esposito, who has at least a dozen past or present affiliations with global Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas organizations.